In the Kingdom Plantae, of the family Rosaceae, and under the genus Rosa there are over 360 flowers.

You loved all of them, spending time to stare at each flower’s petals in the vase by your bed.

The one time I asked ‘why’ your precious time was spent this way, 

I never got an answer.

Whether it was because you didn’t hear me or didn’t want to, I’ll never know.

Yellow roses were your favorite.

The flower of joy and friendship, so bright,

it clashed with the darkness of your room…

I hated your room. Every time I walked in,

a yellow rose and a blank stare were all that greeted me.

The doctors said you had dementia, eating away at not just your brain but you.

A weed in the garden of your mind you had taken such good care of.

Yellow roses were your favorite. 

The yellow of the petals matched the yellow of the blinking light in your oxygen machine.

The weeds in your shrinking garden were spreading, filling, destroying your lungs.

That’s that thing about weeds. Weeds won’t just kill flowers.

They’ll kill you.

Suffocate you.

No amount of roses could fix that.

Yellow roses were your favorite, but you couldn’t remember why.

One of the last times I saw you, you looked at me but you didn’t see me.

I was a stranger in the pictures on your wall, in your head, I could only imagine my face being covered by poisonous roots. Strangling and unrelenting.

It took time, but the longer I spent saturating your head with my voice, the roots would loosen,

the ground would soften.

You would see me.

Yellow roses were your favorite.

The bush outside your window had some, and each petal on every flower would tremble with the constant breeze.

But it seemed like that breeze reached through the glass and across your body.

Your words were distorted by a quivering jaw, your gentle hands could no longer hold mine and remained shaken by the invisible chill.

The petals in your garden began to fall.

Yellow roses were your favorite.

I could see how they filled your room, your mind, and your lungs.

I could see how the petals would fall with every tremor of your hand and every breath you took.

With tears as my glue, I pick the petals up and put them back onto the quickly decaying flower before me.

Never to stick.

Yellow roses were your favorite. 

You once asked me why your neighbors never visited you. Wondering how your friends could just ignore you when they were so close by.

They were down the road, right?

I didn’t know how to tell you, you were looking down a road that had long been demolished.

And more petals fell around you.

I never liked roses.

Roses fill your nose with a sickly sweet scent. They overpower and mix with the sour air around them.

Roses have thorns that prick your fingers, drawing blood from even the most reverent of hands.

Roses may mean love, but they appear with loss.

Yellow roses were your favorite.

You asked to be buried with one. A symbol of the joy, the love, the happiness leaving with you.

Yellow roses were your favorite.

When your cold, frail hand was wrapped around the stem, I wished it was my hand you grasped instead.

Free of thorns, full of love.

Yellow roses were your favorite, 

and as you went into the ground I watched as your garden grew once more.

Free of weeds and full of fresh air.

I took the petals I saved for you, and I released them.

I released you.

Yellow roses were your favorite, but now they’re mine too.